Electricity is Really Just Organized Lightning-Really?

Current location: Trenton, ME.   High: 86,  Low: 63 AT &T terrible, T-Mobile mi-fi so-so. We use the Speed Test app to determine what kind of internet service we will have once we get there. Here at the park: T-Mobile upload 24.7, download .6.  AT&T--upload 0.00, download is 0.87. That tells you AT&T sucks for internet!

Sparky would love to say that the hitch up leaving Wells, Maine for two days at Trenton at Timberland Acres RV Park was wildly successful and non-eventful, which was 98% true, except for one thing.

We got to our two day stay at Timberland Acres RV park, ready to plug our RV into electric power and Eldo says, "Where's the surge protector?" He usually picks up the hefty surge protector and puts it away after Sparky has detached it from the electrical post and wound the big thick electric cord onto the cord reel inside the rig. In all fairness, sometimes Sparky picks up the surge protector and puts it in the bay. She had laid it on the ground next to the water pump, thinking either he will pick it up or she would pick it up later. He missed it, Sparky got distracted, she missed it, and we left the $400.00+ surge protector BACK at the previous campground. This is bad news, if you care at all about all the electronics in your rig. This day and age, with aging electrical wiring at older campgrounds, you are REALLY taking a chance by just directly plugging your RV electrical cord into the campground electrical outlet post. You can get power surges through the lines, or in our case, just a few days ago, low voltage problems either of which can cause damage to the electronics in the RV possibly or shut down service to the RV. And there's always a possibility that lightning in the area can strike close by and fry things inside your rig through surges or direct hits. It has happened plenty of times to RVers. So in the two times we have been out on the road full timing, we have ALWAYS had a surge protector in place at the campground post hookup. 

Two campgrounds ago, our surge protector kept tripping and shutting our electric supply down. It turns out there was a bad breaker at the post. So it's great insurance. Thus, a great concern when we don't have it to plug in. Luckily, Sparky called the campground and they had it and will hold it for us. Whew! Someone could have easily decided to keep it and say nothing. Should we drive back to the campground which was about 300 miles away and go get it right away? Should we wait a whole week til we return to that same campground and retrieve it then? We did neither. We were just too nervous about not having that electrical protection on the line.

Off we went to a nearby town of Holden, Maine to a Jayco dealer and they had a surge protector that was at a much better price, with a multitude of new features AND an app that lets you see the monitoring of the electric lines coming into the rig and how many amps you are using. It also monitors the park electrical supply and will shut off power to your RV if problems are detected.  Here is what we got:

Here is a sample readout on the app:

When Eldo makes his coffee in the morning, he can see the amps jump up...that coffee pot uses 12 AMPS. That's BIG electrical usage. (But worth it! claims Eldo.) The coffee pot uses almost as much as a running AC in the rig! You don't have to keep an eye on your amp usage at campground if you have 50 amp service at your site, no problem. Plenty of juice to run things. But-sometimes the circuitry in the RV will trip a circuit breaker if two main appliances are in use at the same time even with 50 amp power supply. If you are on 30 amp service, which we have had to use upon occasion because a 50 amp site was not available, then you really have to be knowledgeable about what appliances use how many amps and what you have running at any given time. They add up fast! Campgrounds will sometimes give you a list sort of like this one, so you don't "blow up" your breakers! (The second set of numbers are the amps for the appliance.) This is just a very short list.

What's cool about this surge protector besides giving Eldo more facts and figures he ever wanted to know about electrical power in the rig, is that it has a white bulldog face on the post if everything is ok. Plug it in, turn the switches on inside the box. White face? A-OK. If it turns red, it then displays codes on the protector box and Eldo can look them up on his app and know exactly what's wrong with the electricity so we can report a specific problem to the campground. One time we had a campground maintenance guy tell us  that our old surge protector was going bad. So Sparky went and tested the surge protector on three other unoccupied sites to prove there was nothing wrong with the surge protector. It's a bad breaker in your campground box, buddy.

AND one more great thing. If lightning ever strikes a surge protector or lightning surges through the power lines and your surge protector at a campground, usually it's toast. You have to buy an entire new one. Big bucks. Not the Power Watchdog protector. It has a circuitry module board inside and you can replace it for about 30-40 dollars.  We are back online with the new surge protector in place. We will save the old one which still works, as a back up.

We spent two days at a new-to-us campground near Bar Harbor, because we couldn't get into the Narrows Too Campground or add any more days on the end of our stay at the Narrows (which is a free stay with our campground membership). There are only a very few allotted sites for members so even though the park can seem to be empty, they are not allowed to place a Thousand Trails member in any other site that could be available. So far we have not had a problem getting sites with our booking window of 180 days out, but we have a hard time understanding why, is space is available, that we can't stay longer. Can't fuss too much about that, because by staying in membership parks all summer long up here in Maine, our estimates are we have saved at least $5,000 in camping fees by using our Thousand Trails membership. We will deal with the shortcomings of the program just to be able to be near the ocean and Acadia National Park all summer long. This is Sparky's last chance to ride the carriage roads and hike at Acadia! 

We stayed at the Timberland Acres RV Park...It was a reasonable 63.00 a night, for two nights, which is above our budget, but still quite a bargain to be so close to Acadia National Park in the peak summer month of August. Nice campground, nice pull through sites, although the pull throughs are out in the open, with no trees or shade of any kind. It's hot up here right now...high 80's, low 90's...and humid! Ugh...But not as hot as many parts of the lower U.S. They have lots of seasonal people staying at this park, but with over 300 sites, it's bigger than it looks when you pull in and they had room for us. 

Easy to maneuver around with a big rig. Sites are fairly close together, but so long in length, you can position your RV so it's not right next to your neighbor's window. We are so used to being assigned certain spots, we didn't ask for a different one, but there are nicer ones with more shade there.

And after two days, we headed 6 miles down the road to our last day in the Bar Harbor area at Narrows Too campground in Trenton. By the way, AT&T service on our phones is TERRIBLE! Dropped calls, cutting out badly. T-Mobile mifi is better for internet, but as far as trying to have regular conversations or texts with family on our AT&T phones, it's really problematic at this particular location in Trenton, ME. 

As we have said before, you can rent a big kayak at the Narrows Too Campground, but the tidal charts restrict heavily when and what time you can go so you don't end out on the mud flats! Sparky wanted to go today, the 7th, but the next available time for kayak rental due to tide issues was not till Aug. 11th! Weird!

We tried a Lobster Roll (a Maine tourist diet staple!) from the Lunts Lobster Pound today which is right directly across from the campground. It was delicious! Lobster roll offerings are everywhere at local lobster pounds every corner you turn. (A lobster pound is usually a small take out or eat in restaurant that serve all things lobster, clams and seafood. Here's another little one just down the road from the park. We haven't tried this one yet. But yum, lobster rolls are really really good! (And Sparky is NOT a lobster fan, says E.)

Another day, we ate at a great Mexican restaurant in Ellsworth, that we have found to be very good. Margaritas Mexican Restaurant in downtown Ellsworth, a short drive from the park. We highly recommend that one, too! Cool interior decor....

Downtown Bar Harbor wharf

On a particularly hot Sunday, Sparky decided to ride the free Island Explorer bus system, sponsored by L.L. Bean Company. The bus comes regularly to the campground, takes you the Village Green Center in the heart of Bar Harbor a 30 minute ride and from there you can pick up other buses to explore Acadia and Mount Desert Island. Good deal! So Sparky rode the bus into Bar Harbor and spent a couple of hours browsing and checking out the town, then headed back on the Island Explorer to our campground. Bar Harbor has LOTS of fun little tourist shops, and LOTS of ice cream shops, of course. This store's corner display had everything blueberries, even a "Blueberries for Sal" tee shirt. Great children's story, by the way....

Be prepared for sticker shock on some things, maine-ly food. (Haha, see what she did there?) Sparky got an average sized milkshake, and it was ten bucks! Downtown Bar Harbor has expanded shops at the wharf, adding restaurants, more tourist booking attractions and more lodging. It's really beautiful there. You can even walk out on a sand bar  from the wharf when the tide is out and cross over to an island. It was too hot today to do that, so Sparky didn't. BUT--watch out and be aware of the tides! Nobody is going to tell you when the tide comes in or out, so it's your responsibility to know when. Hmmmm...Sparky thinks it would be FUN to get stranded. But--is that 50.00 or 150.00 on the sign? Guess that makes it less fun....haha.

at the Bar Harbor Wharf

We will be here five days, then head back to Wells Thousand Trails Campground at Moody Beach for three more weeks, then we start heading west towards the midwest at the end of the month. Hope we didn't bore you too much with electrical stuff! But it's all a part of RVing especially as a full timer! See you down the road......

"Please Come to Boston" by Dave Loggins

This is a song of several referencing Boston, that the Old Town Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tour played as we disembarked from the tour a few days ago, on our last visit to Boston since we were leaving soon for Trenton. It was the perfect ending to a lovely day and a great second visit to Boston, a really beautiful clean town with plenty of green spaces.

After enjoying our first foray into Boston on the Amtrak train for the whale watch tour, we decided to go once again on the train to Boston. It's about 17.00 one way from Wells to "Beantown", and a little over an hour and a half ride. Ever wonder how Boston came to be called "Beantown"? Because of the Puritans/Pilgrims beans staples for their diet! And of course you have heard of Boston baked beans, haha. 

We decided to do the Old Town Trolley tour, (about 51.00 a person) because we wanted to see more of this big, beautiful town. The tour is ranked in

Forbes top ten list of hop on off off trolley tours in the world. Wow! Must be pretty good, right?  NO prerecorded narration, it's all live. Stadium style seating so you are sitting up high for good photos. The tours start at 9:00 AM and run their last stop at 5 PM from Stop #1, April thru October.

Here's the problem.....if you don't take the train early enough in the day, like REALLY early, (the 5:59AM train) you are going to run into the afternoon city rush hour traffic with the trolley, slowing everything down and making it difficult to catch a reasonable train (5:20 PM) back to Wells if you hop on and hop off often. The next train back to Wells is not till about 10:30 PM if you miss the 5:20. We took the 8:30 

AM train getting us into Boston at about 10:25 AM. We decided to first just ride the trolley through all 14 stops, hear the narration and then go back round again and hop off at a few. Apparently, that's what a lot of people decided to do that day. What we noticed was that in late summer, when all the tourists seem to peak visiting Boston, the trolleys got so full, that if you got off, you wouldn't be guaranteed to get back on the very next trolley. The trolleys arrive at the different stops about every 15 minutes till rush hour traffic starts around 2:00 PM, then clogs and congestion occur. People were having to wait for a second trolley to roll through in order to get on, and the guide was having to call dispatch several times to get another trolley to the location. You can get on at any trolley stop, and get off at any one you like, as many times as you like. Trolleys are open air, and even though it was a hot day in the high 80's, it was very comfortable on the trolley.

Here are the stops: 

1. Fanueil Hall Marketplace and Quincy Market, and the New England Aquarium

2. Historic North End...Boston's "Little Italy"

3. USS Constitution/Charlestown Navy Yard

4. North Station/TD Garden--the rail station, sports museum, Boston Bruins Pro Shop-you can catch a trolley just outside the train station on Causeway Ave. Great little eating places downstairs....

5. Macy's/Historic District--Old State House Museum, Old Meeting House

6. Charles Street/Antique Row--Beacon Hill--original gas lamps that are still lit every day and are on all day and all night...There are 2,800 gas lamps in the city of Boston. Beacon Hill has most of them. There is currently a pilot program that will look into converting the colonial lanterns from gas to LED lights as apparently, the methane gas emitted is causing high levels in the soil which is killing trees. Who knew? Massachusetts General Hospital is on this stop which has the Ether Dome where ether was first administered in the first public surgery in 1846, by Dr. T.G. Morton.

7. "Cheers" the original bar from the TV show, "where everybody knows your name"....At this point, the guide played the theme song and everybody sang along.

8. Prudential Center, Fenway Park--coolest glass sided building that reflected everything! And the Mapparium Globe, a unique perspective of the world...

9. Christian Science Plaza, Symphony Hall

10. Copley Place Mall

11. Copley Square, Trinity Church--one of the most beautiful churches in the city, you can take a tour inside...

12. Old Town Trolley welcome center and the Boston Public Gardens swan boats (referenced in the children's story, Make Way for Ducklings), also Chinatown

13. Beacon Hill, Boston Commons--beginning of Freedom Trail, a fantastic walking history trail which we did not do this time but have done in the past...Black Heritage Trail, King's Chapel, historic burying grounds, Park Street Church. The brownstone apartments in the area were AMAZING!

14. Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum--6.00 off admission with the trolley tour.

We loved our tour today. Even though we did not get off and on like we originally planned, the narration was fabulous we learned a lot about Boston, how much it costs to live there ($$$$), where Tom Brady used to live, and many many other interesting tidbits about Boston. No matter which side of the trolley you sit on, there are fantastic views the entire way. Today's photos were all taken from the trolley. Boston is an amazing conglomeration of old and new architecture. We just were in awe of how beautiful the city was.

Note: if you sit in the back of the trolley, you might have a little trouble understanding the narration, as the engine noise and gear changing was a little loud, haha. The driver later said he was having trouble with second gear and he had to rev the engine even more than normal....Ah-h-h-h-h...no wonder it was so loud!

beautiful side streets of Boston

Bas Relief doorway

We love taking Amtrak into Boston and avoiding all the traffic and headaches of parking, but it DID cause a few time constraints with what we were able to see and do. We think we would come in on the earlier train next time and hop on when the trolley tour first opens. That way we could explore a little more--next time! 

Thanks for following along with us today.....We head back to Trenton for a week out of our membership parks before returning to Wells, we will take another Amtrak ride and a Fenway Park ball game in mid August with Sparky's brother! Sparky will report soon on how crowded Acadia is in August and will try the Island Explorer free shuttle service in and around Acadia. See you later!

Sparky and Eldo on the Amtrak

This and That and the Train!

Site 189, Moody Beach RV Resort. Highs: 93, 92, 88, 89, 88

Lows: 65, 67, 70, 62, 60, and sixties the rest of the week. AT&T hotspot decent for downloading, T-Mobile Mifi- better for uploading. Sparky puts that in because now people want to know, how is the internet where you are? As a general rule, campground wifi is TERRIBLE!

We are at Moody Beach Thousand Trails Resort in Wells, Maine for the third time this summer. We must really like it, right! Yep, we do! It's nearly free with our Thousand Trails membership and we are finding out some really cool things about this area that enable you to head out for other cool places if you are not big beach people as we are not. Been there, done that for many many years, lifeguarding, overexposure to the sun, etc. Not to mention, the summer crowds are pretty large at the beach these days with the 90's temperatures hitting the coast of Maine this past week.

But first of all, some quick views/reviews of our park. As it is in the 90's, we are glad for 50 amp electric vs. 30 amp that smaller RVs have to use. We are running both AC's but because we are in the shade in the back of the park, our air conditioners are not running constantly like they would be up in the non-shaded front of the park. It may be hot right now, but the Atlantic Ocean and Wells Beach (a 30 min. walk away), is still pretty cool, the water temperature is in the mid sixties. You might need a wetsuit for some serious swimming? This family is READY! That's a lot of wetsuits!

There is a big mix of full time RVers (they have the big fifth wheels like we do, or the big, rectangular box on wheels class A/ motorhomes--the other big guys) in this park. The weekend warriors are usually in smaller pull behind travel trailers or self-contained trucks with the roof over the cab--class C's. You can tell if people are seasonal/annuals by how they decorate their site because if they have paid for the whole season, they might go all out with landscaping and doodads. This one has an elaborate outdoor BBQ/kitchen set up on the right side of their site. They have a corner site and it is completely full of stuff.

Big screen tents or pop ups with removeable covered side walls are VERY popular. It's kind of like an extra outdoor living room space. Some put furniture in there, like sofas and ottomans, or they use it to stay bug free and put their picnic table inside. Speaking of bugs, there are very few mosquitoes or nasty biting bugs here near the coast AT THIS CAMPGROUND. Maybe because there are USUALLY ocean breezes blowing through. We love that! But there ARE little teeny tiny non biting greenish white insects that love Sparky if she's crafting outdoors. Those are just plain annoying! They just feel like you've got creepy crawlies moving around on your skin and you can barely see them. Sparky is swatting at little nothings while outside. Guess she COULD put on some bug spray/cream. (Ya think? laughs E.)

Being that we are partially in the Maine woods, this is a common way people are storing their firewood. Clever! 

If you see a gray container on the back of an RV like this one below and wonder what that is for....(Uh-oh, you may want to skip this part, warns, Eldo.)

That's a waste container, as in a temporary poop/pee holder. If you camp in a state park, or sometimes a national park, or state forest with no full hookups there will be no place for you to dump your waste when your toilet tank/(black tank) gets full. So you hook your hose up to this container, empty your rig waste via a big accordion hose into the gray waste container and then roll it to a dump station somewhere in the park for this very purpose, if you don't have a sewer drain at your campsite. You dump it down the waste station hole by way of opening up a valve and gravity does the rest. Sometimes we see these little gray waste containers being rolled by a truck down the lane to the waste station. They don't hold a whole lot, so people make LOTS of little trips with them while they are there. Then you are set for maybe another week or two. Sometimes campgrounds will have what's called a "honey wagon". That's a septic cleaning service that will come around to your campground and pump out your black tanks for a fee. (Sparky, did they REALLY need to know all that? asks E.) Well sure, what if they decide they want to go full time RVing? They need to know these other things that nobody talks about!

OK, 'nuff said about that. What about the train, you ask? Well, the Amtrak station is 15 minutes (with very little traffic, more if on a heavily trafficked time of day) from our campground in Wells. You can go to Boston one way (16.00 for one senior) on Amtrak, the trip taking less than two hours, but the price changes depending on how when you purchase your tickets. It's a little like airfare. If you purchase a little ways out, it's cheaper. We decided to take the train into Boston and have a little day trip look around. Sparky took the train AND her bike on the train to visit her brother in Bedford, MA, last time up here in Wells. This time Sparky and Eldo went to Boston. We were going to do the "Hop On, Hop Off" trolley tour, but it was going to be over 90 degrees and no AC on the trolley, just open air windows, so we decided to do a whale watch instead. 

The trolley with an "upstairs" section

What a day we had!

We took the 6:00AM Amtrak Downeaster from Wells to North Station/TD Garden station in Boston in order to have plenty of time for the 11:00 AM whale watch cruise.  It is an .8 of a mile walk to the wharf and the aquarium from the train station, very doable, and you pass by some terrific, beautiful Boston sites on your way. This is the Quincy Market entrance...

This is another walkway to Faneuil Hall Marketplace, an amazing conglomerate of shopping places and restaurants. We did not explore these today but they looked fabulous and fun!

Boston is a beautiful city with lots of green space....And of course, TONS of history....

A great mix of old and new architecture.....The part of the city we saw was very clean....

The TD Garden/North Train station was very cool...The TD Garden part itself is a multi-purpose 19,600 seat arena as a replacement for the original Boston Garden and is home for the Boston Bruins. It has quite a bizarre naming rights story, too complicated to mention here, but the arena has had 33 names in its history.

There are eighteen restaurants on the lower level. We had the best really rare roast beef sandwich (Cussers) after returning from the whale watch cruise while we were waiting for our train to head back to Wells. 

And how was the cruise you ask? AMAZING! We saw seven humpback whales, some pectoral fin slapping, a breech, a couple of fluke tails, a mother and calf pair of humpbacks, a blue shark, a seal, and a fin whale in the distance. The trip was the City Experiences New England Aquarium Catamaran Whale Watch tour out to Stellwagen Banks (an 842 square mile marine sanctuary) and lasted four hours. Price started at 58.00 per person. We thought that was a decent price for a four hour tour.

We saw whales almost immediately entering the banks area, a feeding grounds for many whales in the summer months. The tour guide was excellent and full of interesting facts. Did you know that whales feed in the summer months in the northern Atlantic and fast in the winter months down by the Dominican Republic? They can lose up to 20,000 pounds during their six months fast. When they return to the Stellewagen Banks, they put on an amazing amount of fat per day to gain their weight back. 

The waters are very green, rich with nutrients for the whales to thrive in this area. AND-- the waters were so clear and calm today it made for optimal viewing. You could see the whales' entire bodies before they came to the surface!

Mama and her calf

The cruise was almost fully booked and as the catamaran held about 400 passengers, it made it difficult to get good photos as the railings on one side or the other were so crowded at every sighting. But if you are patient and wait on the OPPOSITE side of where everybody is currently at, the boat eventually swings around or the whales change directions and you are already waiting at the rail to get your chance at some good photos...We had a fabulous cruise today....It was hot even out on the water, but it was wonderful to be on a catamaran, too and watch it slice thru the waters.

The aquarium is right there next to the docks, but it's a little on the pricey side, (32.00 for a senior) so we didn't check it out today. We had so much fun today, we plan on taking the train again into Boston next week and we are going to do the Hop On, Hop Off Trolley Tour for a little more Boston culture and history. Thanks for stopping by to read today...See you later down the road!